The old man still felt uneasy and said:
"Young gentleman, if you don’t mind, please come to my home for a simple meal."
The look of guilt in the old man’s expression was strong.
Mo Hua thought for a moment and then agreed. He also had some questions he wished to ask.
Along the way, the two of them chatted idle.
Mo Hua learned that the old man’s surname was Ding, and his family of four lived near Thousand Lamps Town in East Mountain Village, and was a lineage of Spirit Farmers.
They could till Spirit Fields, but the income was meager, not enough to support a family.
So his son and daughter-in-law had gone out to make a living, only returning about once every year or two.
His grandson and he stayed home, subsisting on a few thin acres of land, enough to have a meal to eat.
Old Ding brought Mo Hua home.
As expected, Mo Hua saw that the home was indeed bare, very humble.
Old Ding awkwardly said, "This… my home really…"
Mo Hua shook his head, not minding it at all.
Being a Loose Cultivator himself, he knew what poverty was like.
Old Ding went to start a fire to cook.
After a while, a bowl of porridge, a dish of salty vegetables, and one free-range chicken were placed on the table.
The chicken was freshly killed.
When Mo Hua entered the house, he had seen it clucking in the courtyard.
Though this chicken was also raised by a cultivator and considered a Spirit Beast, it hardly contained any Spiritual Energy and wasn’t worth much, which was why some Loose Cultivators would keep a few, just feeding them grass.
But this was the only chicken Old Ding had.
The pickled vegetables tasted bitter and salty.
In the porridge bowl there were a few grains of rice, but this was only in Mo Hua’s bowl.
In Old Ding’s and his grandson’s bowls, the porridge was watery, without a single grain.
People who tilled the land, yet had no rice to eat.
Mo Hua fell silent for a moment.
"Loose Cultivators in Tongxian City have a hard life, but the vast majority of Loose Cultivators in the Cultivation World probably have it even worse than in Tongxian City."
This was something Elder Yu had said to him, but it was the first time Mo Hua truly felt its weight.
He thought of the banquet the Sun Family had that morning, covering an entire table, as well as the remaining rice and meat that was disposed of without a second thought…
Mo Hua sighed.
Without toiling the fields, they dressed in finery and ate sumptuously, while the hardworking peasants couldn’t even fill their stomachs.